


'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.

by gendzl



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Accidental Relationship, Bickering, Coming Out, Friends to Lovers, Jewish Character, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Oblivious Arthur (Inception), Trans Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23615080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gendzl/pseuds/gendzl
Summary: Eames falls in love with Arthur the day they meet. It takes Arthur just as long to fall for Eames...give or take another five years.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 154





	'Tis but thy name that is my enemy.

**Author's Note:**

> write the trans fic you wish to see in the world, that's my motto.

"Eames—?" Their client's tone is flirtatious as she breaks off expectantly, and Arthur rolls his eyes from over her shoulder.

"Just Eames," says Eames, as he always does. His smile is easy, but entirely false. It looks wrong on his face.

Arthur often wonders why he doesn't just make something up, but supposes that Eames thinks the air of mystery is somehow part of his allure.

It would irritate him, but Eames isn't entirely _wrong_ about that fact. Not that _he's_ allured or anything (he isn't). It wouldn't even matter if he was (he wasn't), because while Eames flirts with everything that moves, Arthur never once witnesses Eames following through on any of it. Whenever the flirting is met with a genuine expression of interest, he parries with a delicate letdown. So even if he wanted to (which he doesn't), he wouldn't have a chance.

Eames is always gentle about it, full of accented endearments and bashful head-ducking and the occasional "if only I weren't married" for the really determined sort. (One time, he snagged Arthur by the elbow and borrowed him as his "husband" for twenty minutes to escape the clutches of a wealthy mark's wife—who'd seemingly bathed in mothballs for their evening out—and it had left Arthur feeling distinctly off-kilter for almost a week.)

Unbeknownst to Arthur, Eames never goes home with anyone because Eames had fallen in love with Arthur exactly twelve hours after they met: when he saw Arthur stumble out of an anonymous hotel room in Iowa in his pajamas, with his hair freed from the severe style it had been in during the day. He had _curls_. Eames was going to have a stern conversation with the butterflies in his stomach just as soon as the smoke alarms stopped.

But by the time he got back inside, they'd had the first conversation of their flourishing working relationship that wasn't to do with the job they were on, and both Eames and his butterflies were entirely smitten. Hopelessly infatuated. Disgustingly, uselessly, irretrievably enamored.

Eames almost makes himself gag, sometimes, he's that far gone on the man.

He tried telling him, in the beginning. Flirting—endless flirting—and the occasional offer for dinner and even once an outright proposition. Arthur reacted to all of it with such persistent ignorance to the situation that Eames finally figured he was being let down in the most nonconfrontational manner he'd ever seen. It couldn't be possible that anyone could miss the sincerity of Eames' intentions, and yet.

It was frustrating, but also endlessly fun, as Arthur never seemed to mind (the back of his neck turned pink at Eames' worst innuendos, but he'd also turn away stifling a grin) or told him to stop. He lived in hope that one day, Arthur would wake the fuck up and realize Eames was serious. If he didn't wind up _with_ Arthur, at least he'd get some closure.

In the meantime, he'd keep flirting.

Eames' flirtations or not, they continue to pick at each other—bickering like they're getting paid for it. It's not because Arthur likes him, no matter what his mother might have once insinuated. It _isn't_.

It is, however, mutual. They push buttons and prod at known pet peeves (uncovering new ones whenever they can), and—oh cripes, if Arthur sees that teal shirt of Eames' _one more time_ he is going to _incinerate it_.

"For the love of God, Eames, _why_ do you insist on dressing like you stumbled half blind and completely naked into a secondhand shop?"

This is not the first, nor even the second time that Arthur has criticized this particular shirt. It looks like the '80s threw up on a bowling alley carpet, and Eames wears it at least once on every job they pull together. He's mentioned it a dozen times in the last three years if he's mentioned it once.

Normally, Eames would volley back with an insult of his own—something about Arthur's tie pin daring to risk his ire by sitting askew, perhaps—but he's been oddly quiet on this job (very boring, the kind of extraction you schedule between challenges for no reason other to pad your retirement fund). He frowns instead. "What was your childhood like, Arthur?"

What? No, really, "What?"

Eames leans back in the mesh spinny chair he appropriated from the CEO's office an hour ago (amidst loud protest from their architect that went entirely unheeded), cocking his head to one side and meeting Arthur's gaze far more seriously than he's strictly comfortable with. "Your childhood. Was it uplifting? Comfortable? Were you well-off? Poor? Spoiled rotten or neglected?"

Arthur's spine has stiffened into rebar. "That's none of your business," he says tightly.

"Mmm. Exactly. I ask because it's only fair. Whether you knew it or not, Arthur—and I'm certainly not blaming you for it, I just want you to be aware going forward—whether you knew it or not, that's the question you've been asking of me every time you bring up my attire."

"Excuse me?"

"My clothes." He gestures at down at the loudness on his chest. "The short, somewhat depressing answer is that I never got to dress the way I wanted to as a child. I don't mind that many of my choices are hideous—and, yes, Arthur, I'm perfectly aware that they are—because they're _fun_. Either the patterns themselves or the reactions they elicit from other people. I never had fun with my clothes growing up. I never got to embarrass my parents when they took me out after they let me dress myself. Darling, I am making up for lost time, and I'd really appreciate it if you'd just let me."

He feels blindsided. "Oh."

"Yes. Oh." Eames' mouth tilts up in an echo of his familiar smile.

A moment later all hell breaks loose one floor down and they're running for their lives.

Arthur stops poking fun at his shirts.

"We're friends, aren't we, Arthur?"

Arthur scoffs on instinct, and refuses to acknowledge the twinge of guilt in his chest when Eames' face falls slightly.

Ah, fuck it. "I suppose, after the number of times we've saved each other's lives, we could qualify as something more than acquaintances, or colleagues."

"So, friends."

He nods tentatively. "Friends."

"Excellent! Then, as your friend, it is my duty to inform you that you've got something caught in your teeth."

Arthur's hand flies up to cover his mouth. "And you weren't going to tell me that if I'd said we weren't friends?!"

"It's rude to embarrass your acquaintances, darling."

"Just tell me if Eames is your first name or your last name."

Eames grins. "Alright. Yes."

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, it's my first name or my last name."

"That doesn't tell me anything!" Arthur exclaims.

"Wrong. You can now rest completely assured in knowing that it is _not,_ in fact, my middle name. Or some kind of title."

"I hate you."

"You're a terrible liar, sweetheart."

No man should ever look that smug. Arthur makes up his mind to knock him down a peg or two at the next available opportunity.

Arthur gives into his curiosity around two in the morning, sitting on one of the double beds in their shared motel room, surrounded by parts of a PASIV machine that technically wasn't meant to be broken into multiple pieces. His inhibitions had dissipated along with his patience as the hours grew large and then shrunk abruptly and he was nowhere near to being finished. Their _fucking_ chemist had used something experimental which eroded all the inner tubing. Thousands of dollars down the drain, and they couldn't afford a whole new machine, so here he is. Winging the repair.

"Eames?" he asks without looking up from two interconnected metal bits he's trying to pry loose from each other. "Why do you never take anyone up on it?"

"Up on what, darling?" Eames is on the other bed, the one he claimed as his own as soon as they walked in, but if he thinks he's sleeping in it alone tonight he's got another think coming. Arthur refuses to sleep surrounded by either sharp metal or insects, which are undoubtedly nesting in the carpet. Yes, Eames will most certainly be sharing.

"Sex. Dating. Either, both, whatever. You flirt but you never go anywhere with it."

"Well that's simple. It's because none of them are _you_ , Arthur. I promise that if you were to take me up on it, there would be all _sorts_ of follow through." He winks tiredly at him. "But not just now, please. I need my beauty sleep. Are you almost done over there?"

He sighs. Their night is nowhere near over.

They've been working together for five years when Eames decides to tell Arthur.

He doesn't actually say anything, just makes sure to swing by one of his storage units before their next job. It's a few countries out of his way, but he doesn't mind.

Arthur finds the photo he'd slipped into the front pocket of his bag exactly one hour and twenty minutes into the flight. If there are any constants in this world, one of them's that Arthur will never bring enough in-flight entertainment and would, at some point, rifle through Eames' carry-on.

"I didn't know you had a sister."

Eames doesn't look up from his book, turning the page before he's finished with it because he knows it'll add an air of nonchalance to the reveal. If he doesn't make a big deal out of it, maybe Arthur won't either. He keeps his tone light as he says, "There are a lot of things we don't know about each other, Arthur, but the existence of a mysterious, previously undisclosed sister is not one of them."

Arthur blinks down at the photo of a young girl with long blonde hair and features that closely mirror those of the man sitting beside him. "I'd venture daughter next, but I haven't seen a windbreaker that bright since the '90s."

"You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling," Eames says softly, turning another page.

Arthur makes a thoughtful noise and falls silent again. The next time Eames chances a look at him, the photo is back where Arthur had found it, and Arthur himself is nose-deep in the Sudoku puzzle book Eames brought along for him. He's doing it in pen, too, the bastard.

"A lot of Jews hold that changing your name changes your destiny," Arthur says abruptly. It's been three months since their non-conversation on the plane, and this is the first that they've seen each other.

Eames had kept a close eye on Arthur during that last job, but he hadn't been noticeably different in their interactions that whole week. Hadn't touched him less or stared more. Hadn't laughed too loudly or second-guessed his words before speaking them. In fact, Eames had almost wondered if Arthur missed the point of their discussion entirely, except that now he's looking at Eames softly from the other side of their hotel room, waiting for a reply.

(The hotel room thing was _not_ his idea. If anything, he'd have suggested that they maintain their separate rooms purely because he wasn't sure his heart could take this much of seeing Arthur all soft and unbuttoned, but Arthur had been booking them in the same room together since that mess in Angola, and he hadn't the heart to tell him no. It was the wisest course of action, really. It was also the one with an added side effect of making Eames yearn like a schoolboy.)

(Angola was _also_ responsible for the two of them refusing to take jobs separately anymore. They had become a matched set, a two-for-the-price-of…well, two. But you couldn't get either one of them without also taking the other. Again with the whole "yearning for a good cause" thing. There had been one too many abduction attempts for either of their liking.)

Eames suddenly finds that he doesn't want to have this conversation. Not with the way it's always gone in the past. He veers firmly off-course, going so far as to roll over and place his back to the room. "Well, that's perfect for our line of work then, isn't it? Can't typically keep a name longer than eight months, these days."

"Eames."

"Yes, Arthur?"

The bed dips beside him, and a warm hand falls on his shoulder. _"Eames."_

He turns. "What?"

Arthur is chewing on his lip, like he hadn't thought this far ahead. Finally, he asks, "Why did you tell me?"

Eames considers all the reasons he had for saying anything, from the practical to the sentimental, and offers up the only one that really matters: "Because I wanted to."

Arthur nods. "Okay. Thank you, for trusting me with it."

Eames hums. "You're welcome."

"We can be done with the emotions now," Arthur says with a sly grin, clambering back off the bed without another word.

Arthur turns off the lamp situated on the table between their two beds and settles under his own covers.

Eames waits a long, pointed moment, and then mutters into the dark, "I'm still not telling you whether it's my first name or my last."

Arthur's undignified snort of laughter dissipates the last of the tension in the room.

Nothing changes. And he really does mean nothing.

There's one moment on that job where Arthur looks over at Eames and says, "You're aware that I'm gay, right?" like it's an offering, an equalizer, and Eames laughs so hard he can't catch his breath because it's _Arthur_ , who consistently sets off every gaydar within a ten mile radius of himself and makes no attempt at trying to make anyone think that he is anything but very deeply, enthusiastically into men.

Things go on as they always have.

But their relationship does indeed shift. Eames isn't sure if it's a natural consequence of having shared some deep part of himself with another person, or if it's a deliberate choice on Arthur's part, but they become closer after that.

They talk between jobs.

At some point, they start seeing each other as well. They meet up a few days early at the start of their jobs, playing tourist in places they wouldn't otherwise spend any time getting to know outside hotel rooms and office buildings.

They meet up for long weekends if they decide they've gone too long between jobs. The time it takes for them to reach "too long" shrinks rapidly.

Eventually—and he has no idea how Arthur finds him—Arthur shows up at Eames' favorite safehouse one week after they parted ways in Belarus (after a clusterfuck of an extraction that was only just _barely_ worth the money they got paid for it), suitcase at his feet and cat carrier held awkwardly in both arms.

"You have a cat," Eames observes dumbly.

"I have a cat," Arthur agrees. "Her name is Henry and she is getting very cold out here on your stoop. Are you going to invite us in?"

He steps aside.

Experiencing Eames at home makes Arthur sad for reasons he can't quite articulate.

The life he leads seems lonely, and he is most certainly alone, but it's also seemingly by choice. It's like this is his natural resting state, as though he has no interest in seeking out something that would fill up the empty corners of his life. Almost as if he doesn't think he's earned the right to a certain kind of happiness.

Okay, that's bullshit. Arthur pulled that out of his ass wholesale. He has no idea why Eames seems to prefer to keep to himself when he's off the job.

Whatever it is, it doesn't stop him from graciously welcoming Henry and Arthur into his home. He makes space in his hall closet for Henry's litter box, repurposes two vintage glass ashtrays for her food and water ("Plastic dishes? Arthur, I beg of you. She's a proper lady."), and even goes so far as to buy an elaborate cat tree that she spends most of her time ignoring.

Arthur is given Eames' spare bedroom and told to make it his own, as this is supposed to be a safe house and therefore nobody ever visits. His tone is a bit pointed. Arthur remains obstinately oblivious.

This offer becomes a general order with regard to the remainder of the house only two weeks into Arthur's open-ended visit:

The fourth time Arthur opens a cupboard and _tuts_ at what he finds there, Eames hands him a credit card and shoves him bodily out the front door. "Come back with everything you need to make certain that I never hear that sound come out of your mouth again, or don't come back at all," he said sternly.

It isn't until Arthur is standing in the middle of a home goods store with a cart full of groceries, linens, and proper glassware that it occurs to him he quite possibly may have managed to fall into a relationship with the man without ever noticing that it was happening.

He returns home—and shouldn't that have been a sign right there? He's already calling it home, for fuck's sake, despite the fact that it's still sparsely decorated and the cupboards aren't fully stocked and the bedsheets are itchy and the only thing there that he really enjoys is Eames himself and oh, _fuck_ —with half the contents of the first aid section (he'd panicked, okay?) and a camera worth three thousand pounds that he has absolutely no use for _(he panicked),_ dumps the lot of it in the entryway, stalks over to Eames where he's cuddling Henry on the couch while he reads (cuddling! Henry! on the couch!), and demands of him: "Are we in love?"

Eames continues stroking Henry as though nothing is amiss. "I don't know, darling. Are we?"

Arthur sheds his jacket and flings it over the back of the couch. "How should I know that?!" (PANICKING.) He gestures around the house. (Their house? It kind of feels like it's theirs? Actually, no. It doesn't just feel like it's theirs, it—) "It kind of feels like we're married?"

That's when Eames seems to register Arthur's tone. He looks up at him, hand pausing on Henry's back where he'd been petting her. She lets out a short _mrrp_ of irritation before hopping to the floor and disappearing down the hall. Eames sits up slowly, closing his book around his index finger to mark his spot. He takes in the pile of purchases Arthur left by the door. "Engage in a bit of retail therapy, did you?"

"If you don't start taking me very seriously in the next two seconds, I'm going to tell the chemist on our next job to use Somnacin 424, so help me G-d," Arthur threatens desperately.

Eames stills. That's the solution that makes him break out in hives. He pats the cushion to his right with his free hand and Arthur folds himself down onto it like a deflated accordion.

"Spell out the problem for me, love," he says.

"That! The five years of endearments and flirting and sharing motel rooms and then sharing your _house,_ and I know your secrets and you know mine and you're taking really good care of my cat! _That's_ the problem! I seem to have entered into a serious relationship with you without even noticing!"

Eames levels him with a curious look. "Is that your only problem with it?"

"What?"

"That you didn't notice. Because I—well, truthfully, Arthur, I've been in love with you for as long as we've known each other."

_"WHAT?!"_

"I've told you this at least twice now, as well. For being so intelligent, darling, you can be remarkably dense."

Arthur scrambled backward on the couch and wound up perched on the arm with his feet where his butt had been moments ago. He's staring at Eames in horror, five years of interactions falling down on his head at once.

"I—I don't—I—" he stammers.

The furrow in Eames' brow deepens. Arthur is not a man who stammers. "Are you alright?"

Arthur drops his head between his knees. "Just give me a minute, please," he says, and proceeds to take several deep, measured breaths in a row.

Eames sits back and stares sightlessly down at the book in his hands. This was not how he expected his afternoon to go. He'd thought maybe Arthur would come home bitching about the lack of proper flatware at the store. Maybe he'd help him make the beds up in new sheets, hang some artwork up on the walls, and finally dispose of the mismatched collection of canning jars he'd been using as drinking glasses since he moved in.

Not… _this_.

He'd half expected to go the rest of his life never telling Arthur how he felt in a way that would make Arthur actually hear it.

Eames is about to get to his feet and start making tea for lack of anything else to do when Arthur pops back up again and says, "Yes."

"Yes, what?"

Arthur smiles. "Yes, that's the only problem I had with this situation. Yes, I'm in love with you, too. Yes to all of it. Yes to everything. Yes."

"Yes?"

_"Yes."_

Instead of going to bed in separate rooms, they come together each night at opposite sides of the same bed.

They still only work jobs if they can work them together, but now everyone knows _why_. Their motel rooms shrink to a single bed.

Neither of them is sexually frustrated anymore, which Eames in particular is entirely on board with.

Arthur makes only a few trips back to his house in order to pack up the rest of his belongings and see to it once and for all that their bookshelves fully merge, and that the contents of Eames' _(their)_ silverware drawer stops being such an eyesore. (Flatware should never have lime green plastic handles.)

Henry is spoiled rotten by two full-time owners, both of whom sneak her treats when the other is distracted.

Eames surprises Arthur by learning the blessing for lighting candles on Shabbat, and Arthur tries very hard not to let his feelings about that leak out of his eyes.

Arthur reciprocates by quietly asking Eames to show him how he can best help with his T-shot.

Just for good measure (the competitive asshole), Arthur also ensures that all existing stock of Somnacin 424 is permanently destroyed and extracts promises from every chemist in the community that they'll never make more.

They're happy.

Well, mostly happy. There's still that one thing:

Arthur comes home with a copy of their marriage certificate two years later and slaps it down on the table triumphantly. "Eames is your _first_ name!"

"That's not necessarily what it started out as, of course," Eames says mildly. "You'll never really be sure."


End file.
